LeT’s intelliegence chief Azam Cheema (70) died following a heart attack in Faisalabad. But his death still stoked speculation galore in Pakistan’s jihadi circles, especially in the wake of mysterious killings of several Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operatives in recent months.
Pakistan has accused Indian agencies of being behind the killings of a number of LeT operatives, a charge denied by India. Though New Delhi maintained that it doesn’t keep any such ‘killing list’, if indeed there were one, Cheema would have been on top along with JUD chief Hafiz Saeed and JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar.
Cheema was among the chief conspirators of 26/11 terror attacks and July 2006 Mumbai train bombings besides many other terror strikes in India.
For Indian agencies, the news of his death only confirms the presence of a designated terrorist on Pak soil and brings out Islamabad’s repeated denials. Intelligence sources described Cheema as an elusive Punjabi-speaking, bearded and well-built LeT operative who spent the early 2000s in Bahawalpur in Pakistan where he lived with his wife and two children.
“He was often spotted moving around in a Land Cruiser with six bodyguards. It was Cheema who had once brought former ISI chief general Hamid Gul, brigadier Riyaz and Colonel Rafiq to brainwash jehadis undergoing arms training in Bahawalpur camp. He would occasionally visit Karachi and Lahore training camps as well,” said a source.
Cheema was working as the LeT commander for Bahawalpur in Pakistan in 2008 when he was appointed as an operations advisor to Lashkar’s senior functionary Zaki-Ur -Rehman Lakhvi and participated in the planning and execution besides training of recruits in the 26/11Mumbai attacks.
The US department of treasury describes him as a ‘key commander’ in the operations of Lashkar-e-Taiba which it adds had links to Usama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network. LeT was designated by the US as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation in December 2001, and by the UN Committee in May 2005.